Network performance of one wireless technology can be very different from other wireless technologies. For example, the theoretical maximum data throughput of Long Term Evolution (LTE) is significantly higher than the theoretical maximum data throughput of Third Generation (3G). Therefore, it is preferred to use LTE when LTE is available. However, it is well known that network quality in wireless communication channels can be vastly different from one second to another second. Most wireless communication service providers and wireless communication devices allow wireless communication devices to change the use of wireless technologies depending on the network availability, signal strength, signal quality, network capacity and other metrics. It is desirable to restrict a wireless communication device to use one particular wireless technology only, regardless of the network availability, signal strength, signal quality, network capacity of the particular wireless technology.
It is well-known to those who are skilled in the art that state-of-art wireless communication devices allow the wireless communication devices to be configured to use one particular wireless technology. However, state-of-art wireless communication devices do not allow using two or more network adapters to transmit data, receive data and/or communicate with wireless access networks through the two or more network adapters simultaneously. Furthermore, state-of-art wireless communication devices do not take into the account that each network adapter may be different and/or the access network that each network adapter connects to may be different.
Furthermore, state-of-art wireless communication devices do not take into the account when data belonging to one session are distributed among a plurality of network adapters, which are using wireless communication technologies. Packet loss or packet drop experienced by one network adapter may materially affect the overall performance of the one session. For example, a wireless communication device may distribute data belonging to a TCP session using a plurality of network adapters. When there is a packet drop experienced in a connection used by a network adapter, other data after the dropped data packet may also be considered lost or dropped, due to the design of TCP, even if those other data have successfully arrived at the other side.
Network adapters may use a default communication technology and choose an access network depending on factors including signal strength, signal quality, network capacity. Alternatively, network adapters choose an access network only based on these factors, and there is no default communication technology. In some cases, based on these factors, the multiple network adapters of a network device use the same access network, and the disadvantages of this are illustrated in an example. For example, a first network adapter and a second network adapter use LTE technology, and they establish a first and second end-to-end connection respectively using a first LTE network. The first and second end-to-end connections are bonded to form an aggregated connection. Firstly, if the performance of the first LTE network is not satisfactory, for example the packet drop rate is high, the packet drop rate is high in both the first and the second end-to-end connections. Therefore, the overall performance of the aggregated end-to-end connection may be unsatisfactory when the same access network with unsatisfactory performance is used in both individual end-to-end connections. Secondly, the performance may further be deteriorated due to interference and sharing of the total bandwidth caused by the two end-to-end connections using the first LTE network.